Practical Tips for Supporting Special Education Students During Your Literacy Block with Dr. Chris Reeve

Sara
Hey, friend, happy Monday. I hope you are having such a great start to your week. And as always, thank you for tuning in. I truly love connecting with you each and every week. And I love sharing literacy tips and suggestions with you.

Sara
But I also know that your job as a teacher is so much more than just literacy, which is why I always love it when I can connect you with other educators who are experts in areas that I am not.

Sara
And so today I have Christine Reeves on the podcast, who is the creator behind Autism Classroom Resources, and she’s the host of the Autism Classroom Resources Podcast. Christine has a doctorate in psychology. She is a board certified behavior analyst and she has spent the last 25 years working alongside special education programs as a behavior specialist. She truly is an expert in her field, and she knows what she’s talking about.

Sara
But more importantly than her long list of credentials is her passion for helping students in special education and partnering with the teachers who serve them. Christine is absolutely delightful, and I wish I had someone like her in my school to help me figure out the best way to support my students with disabilities. I really think you’re going to enjoy listening to our conversation today.

Sara
Hi, Chris, welcome to the show. I am so happy to have you on as a guest today.

Chris
I’m really excited to be here.

Sara
So in case my audience doesn’t know who you are, can you just give us a little intro of who you are, what you do and who you serve?

Chris
Sure. I have a blog, TPT store, podcast focusing on autism and students with disabilities. I’ve spent, I have like 30 years now in all different kinds of roles, working with special ed students, but mostly working with their teachers. And so I’ve had the honor of working with a lot of different classrooms and a lot of different teachers.

Chris
My background is in behavior analysis, so I work a lot with students with challenging behavior. But I also work a lot with students with autism who are included in general ed, students who need self contained classes. So it’s really kind of been the gamut. And I’ve had a lot of different positions.

Chris
My favorite one has been consulting and training with teachers that’s been kind of the mainstay of everything I do. And then I worked with the university, so I designed courses and things like that. But I really, really like being able to work with teachers and find a solution for how they can help their students.

Chris
And so right now, I do that through my online special educator academy, which is a membership, where I get to help them without leaving my house, which is a definite plus.

Sara
I love that you said that you really love supporting teachers to support their students that have disabilities or special needs. And I I think back I mean, it’s been a couple of years since I’ve been in the classroom, but every year I had students that were in special education, you know, whether they were pushing into my classroom for, you know 30 minutes or being pulled out.

Sara
And I never felt like I had the support. Like, I never had somebody who was telling me, you know, I wanted those students to be successful in my classroom. But I often didn’t feel like I had the tools or knew how I could improve my instruction or what I needed to do to address their behavior issues or their academic needs. And I always just felt like I was under serving them.

Sara
And so I love that you are committed to and really just dedicated to helping teachers better serve their students in special education. I always love hearing just like how teachers got started in their specific journey or niche.

Sara
How did you get started in special education? Is that what your degree was in? Or did you have an experience that sort of had you shift to just give us a little bit of background with kind of your own journey?

Chris
I always knew I wanted to work in special needs. I have a older sister, who as I looked at her now she very clearly has autism. But when she was young, she wouldn’t fit, nobody really knew what it was. And so I never really put it together that that might be related to why I wanted to work with individuals with behavior, disabilities and autism.

Chris
Until I was writing a bio for class I was teaching and I was like, oh, maybe living with severe challenging behavior makes you be more interested in it than other people would be. I mean, from the time I was very young, it’s always what I wanted to do I come from a family of teachers. And I actually went to school to do research, looking at challenging behavior and people with disabilities. That was really my focus.

Chris
And then I think my dissertation kind of burned me out on that, on the whole research thing. So I went on to do a variety work in a variety of settings, I ended up at a university where I got to work with probably one of the largest preschool programs for children with autism at the time. And from there went into school consulting and getting to work with teachers, and really supporting them in their classroom.

Chris
And that really is the thing that was like, Yes, I will travel 30 weeks out of the year, just to do this, this is so cool. So I did that through the university for quite a long time. And in 2010, I went out on my own and a little bit after that started TPT, and was still had consulting and training clients.

Chris
And before the pandemic, I actually started that Academy back in 2017. And then started to kind of just ease off some of the travel because I, my family always laughed at me because they’re like, Well, Chris won’t be there. She’s never there, she’s always somewhere else. So it’s been kind of nice not to actually be on a plane every day.

Sara
One, I think it’s so cool the opportunities that teachers have in education, you know, whether it’s outside of the classroom, so within a district or a school, or even like you were saying to travel, there’s just I always encourage teachers that there are so many opportunities within education to be making a direct impact on teachers and students that don’t look like the typical, you know, classroom setting. So that’s really neat.

Sara
And I love like I said, I love that this is sort of your area of expertise. And I’m so happy to have you on today. Before we get into the conversation, I know you’ve got some really great tips and strategies to share with teachers.

Sara
What are some things that teachers need to know about students who have an ASD diagnosis, or just in general, if they’ve got a student that’s in special education, what are some general things that teachers really need to know and understand about those students?

Chris
I think one of the most important things, particularly if you’re talking about autism is that every one of them can be completely different. Many years ago, when I interviewed for my job, I had a parent in the interview, who said, How many children with autism have you seen? And I’m like, I don’t know, I didn’t count them. And she was like, well, it was at like, two, why would you come interview to work at the school if you’ve only work with two kids with autism?

Chris
Because they’re also different. Just when I think I’ve seen all of it, I need a kid who’s just completely different. So you can have a student who is completely on grade level, who can do all of the work, but is struggling socially in class, or a student who is really struggling with the work who’s socially seems to be okay. And it’s really a big, a very big range of students.

Chris
And so I think the biggest thing is to know, what is it that they need to be getting from your class. So obviously, if they’re in your class all day, then they’re getting the regular curriculum. But if you have students that are coming in with special ed needs, that are coming into your classroom for an inclusion opportunity, I think the biggest question I always ask is, why are they here? What is the function of it? What is the goal? What are we trying to teach? Is this a social opportunity?

Chris
Because I’ve had a lot of kids that will go into Gen Ed, for the opportunity to really interact with peers. And then we have other students is like, no, they’re really there to do the science experiment. And that’s going to make a difference as to whether or not you say, I’m going to pair them with another student and not be as concerned with the rigor of the science experiment, or I’m going to be concerned about the rigor of the science experiment. So I think the biggest thing is just knowing what it is that they they need from you.

Chris
Probably the other thing is just that the behavior is typically a function of a problem communicating or understanding their environment. When we think about students who are on grade level with autism, we’re thinking about students that are struggling and perceiving the world often in a very different way.

Chris
And there’s an old meme that says, you know, it doesn’t have to make sense to you because it makes sense to him. And I think that really kind of sums a lot of that up. There are sensory needs and communication needs and social awareness that are just not even like when I find out what they are like, Whoa, I never would have guessed that.

Chris
And so when we’re seeing any kind of challenging behavior, I think we have to really think about how do we teach him the skills that he needs to get what he needs instead of doing this? And to recognize that it’s not always an intentional I’m going to do this because it gets me this. It’s going to be, I didn’t have a better way to solve that problem. And that problem solving is often the thing that gets a lot of our kids in trouble.

Sara
I love those reminders, and I’m so glad you shared those. And I think especially as you know, I go back to when I was in the classroom, and I had both some students who came in for socialization purposes, and other students who were there for academics. And I think so often as teachers, we focus so much on like, the mastering of like the objectives and the standards, and it’s, you know, what we’re sort of ingrained.

Sara
But I think especially, it’s important to remind ourselves like, what is the purpose of that student being in our classroom? And and probably even from lesson to lesson like, right? Probably, there’s certain lessons where students need to be more concerned about their behavior, and their communication and social interaction versus like the academics, but sort of just taking a step back and thinking about the big picture, you know, what’s the purpose and being there? What are they going to benefit? And then how can I, as a teacher, support them in achieving that goal?

Sara
Realizing that it might not always be about the academics. In general, we need to keep this in mind, not just with students with autism or other, you know, special needs, but no student is, is the same. And I think so often, we can easily categorize them or make assumptions about them. But I just love that reminder that it’s like, Nope, no two students are the same. And we just need to treat every student according to their specific needs that they’re presenting at the time.

Sara
So I know, we’re going to talk a little bit about strategies that we can use within our literacy class. But before we get to that, what are some things that teachers might need to either anticipate for or to prepare for, to ensure that their students with disabilities are going to be successful in their classroom?

Chris
I think thinking about having a routine that if the student is coming into your classroom, the more I think for all students, and all humans, having that routine is really important, because it allows you to focus on what’s happening in the routine. And of course, for some of our students, especially those with autism, they often do get stuck in that routine, and we can teach them some flexibility.

Chris
But the routine really helps all of us just to be able to not worry about what’s going to happen next, and just focus on what’s happening now. And so I think that’s a piece of it, I think a piece of it is helping them know what your expectations are. And maybe being a bit more explicit.

Chris
When you give directions, I have a lot of students that I’ve worked with that really struggle with understanding that the teacher gave a direction to the whole class, and that included you, that she didn’t say your name, but that still included you.

Chris
I’ve watched over the years, your teachers will get frustrated, because it’s like I’ve told him like a million times, it’s like, but you didn’t say his name and give him that direction, which is the, unfortunately, is the only way he knows how to do it right now. So just recognizing that sometimes those communication issues are, you know, almost like he didn’t hear you or just didn’t process.

Chris
And I think the other piece, too, another piece is that our students with autism are struggling with communication, whether they are a student who is nonverbal, or very low verbal, or a student who is what we think of as kind of hyper verbal talks all the time. But maybe what they’re saying doesn’t really fit the situation, that’s a communication issue. That’s not a behavior issue.

Chris
They’re not doing it, they’re not doing it to drive you crazy. But they are doing it because it either is helping them process, or it’s helping them understand what you said. So you know, we have some kids that will repeat back what’s been said to them, they’re not meaning to seem like they’re making fun of someone, they are simply using that way to process the information.

Chris
And I think when you get into literacy and reading and the language issues involved, you see more of that, because that is an area that is stressful for some of our kids, because the language is hard for them. And so sometimes you’ll see more behavioral issues, maybe in those situations than you would in say, a math or a science or something like that.

Sara
And that makes sense. And I really appreciate how you broke apart and really separated, that a communication issue is not the same as a behavioral issue. Because I think oftentimes we we sort of lump those two together and that if a student you know, whatever sort of their behaviors are including their their speech and communication, we assume that that’s a behavioral issue, but really, like they’re two separate oral communication issues is a subset of behavior.

Sara
But realizing that like a communication issue needs to be addressed in a different way than a behavior issue. So I love that you just sort of like distinguish the difference between those two there.

Sara
Let’s go ahead and kind of talk about some specifics here because I know teachers love to get kind of some of those practical strategies and suggestions on you know how they can better support students in their classrooms.

Sara
So what strategies can teachers implement to help students with autism or significant disabilities to really stay engaged during literacy activities in their classroom? I think specifically thinking about read aloud or anytime that there might be like a discussion around a text.

Chris
And that is an area that is really really hard for a lot of our students. Sometimes it’s hard for us trying to figure out with students with significant disabilities how to include them in the group. For kids with autism, I think they really struggle with the language piece of reading. So it often is harder ime of day for them.

Chris
And many of them struggle sometimes to learn in a group as well. So that becomes an issue. I think it goes back to the thing I said a little while ago too that you always want to start with what is the goal for that student during that time of day? What are they supposed to be practicing or learning during that time of day?

Chris
Are there, you know, it may be an IEP goal, or it may be an informal behavioral or communication goal or something like that. Or it could be the same curriculum goals that you have for the rest of the students in the classroom, it just depends on the student.

Chris
But for some of our students with more severe disabilities, it’s likely to be something that is more social interactive, and that’s going to change what you focus on in terms of what you expect from the student.

Chris
If you’re expecting him, you know, if his if his goal is to remain in the group or to participate or to follow along, then once you know that, you may say, Okay, well, I don’t have to worry as much about the answers that he’s giving me back to these questions, I have to make sure that I’m putting him in a situation with peers who will support him who he can interact with ways that he can participate in the activity.

Chris
You know, for some of our students just having a simple schedule. If they’re a reader, it could be a written schedule, if they’re not a reader, then pictures are really useful, but something that they can follow along for the activity to know what is coming next and what’s being expected. So that goes back to that routine.

Chris
A lot of times I just have them have a popsicle stick with visuals on them that to show them we’re going to do this, then this, then this and that helps a lot of our students calm their anxiety, stay in a group because they can see what’s coming next, what am I going to be done. So I think that’s one thing.

Chris
That is something that we often think of using with students with autism, but I use visual schedules with nearly all kids, I think all of us use visual cues every day, we don’t always realize that we’re using them, we process pictures better than we process written language. So even for some of those kids who are readers, sometimes the picture can be helpful, because it just hits home when they’re upset or frustrated or getting anxious. It’s easier for them to process the picture schedule than a written schedule.

Chris
And I’ve used it with lots of students with different kinds of behavioral issues, typical kids who are just having a problem paying attention, and have some executive functioning thing, because sometimes it’s just really hard for them to track everything that’s being said, deal with the social situations that occur in a group and figure out kind of what am I supposed to do now? So I think that’s really one of the first things I think about is what is our routine going to be and how are we going to communicate that to the students?

Chris
Another thing is, for younger students to keep them engaged in a reading activity, I often think of having them have something they can hold on to that is related to the story. So it could be you know what, in preschool, we often have manipulatives that go with the story and the kids can hold them and hold them up, when we get to that page and participate in that way.

Chris
For some of our kids as they get older, we may be looking at them having a copy of their own book, because being able to track watching the teacher, and really just hear language and not have the visual cues right in front of them of what’s being talked about can be a really difficult task for students that are struggling with those.

Chris
And so sometimes it might just be a second copy of the book, or a mini copy of the book, or just pieces from the book that they can kind of put in order as the as the book goes on. And I think that that really helps it might be pictures of the characters or things like that.

Chris
And then another one is to give them something for some students giving them an active participation role during the storytime activity. So, or during the reading activity, so again, depending on what their goal is, it might be that they’re pointing to pictures on the board as the story is read, or they’re holding the book to share it with the class and they’re turning the pages when it’s time.

Chris
Or they’re taking it around to show everybody so giving them a role to play that’s active, because a lot of our students are not really good passive learner kids.

Sara
I think most kids, you know, as I’m hearing you share these strategies and suggestions, though, I think about and I can see it’s like yeah, I can see how that’s going to help a student with autism or you know, another disability, but I also see how these things can help all students because it’s like, all students really struggle to like sit still, I mean, all students struggle to like know what’s coming next, you know, all students really struggle to sort of like stay engaged and have communication.

Sara
So, you know, I love a lot of these ideas, and I think especially to help students, you know, feel really included and not like, oh, they get something special, you know, it’s they’re in special education. So I get something special, but it’s like all of these things can be done and beneficial for all students in the class and so they don’t need to be done just for our students with you know, autism or others. abilities, it’s like these are good practices really to help keep all students engaged.

Sara
But I love just how simple those are. And again, going back to the reminder of for teachers to really stay focused on what, what is the primary goal and function of that activity and try not to get distracted by, you know, if you’re focused on social interactions or behavior, you know, try not to get distracted by a wrong answer or something of the academics because the the goal for that activity is for the student to participate socially or to work on their behavior skills, and vice versa.

Sara
Because I think, you know, as teachers, we tried to do it all. And sometimes I think, especially if we’re supporting the student that has, you know, some additional needs or whatever, it can be hard to be like, Oh, my gosh, I’m sure they’re participating socially, but they’re not getting the right answer, or sure they’re getting the right answer, but they’re doing so in a disruptive way. But we do honestly just focus on what is the sole objective of that specific lesson.

Chris
And I think with all of those things, too, that you’re right, they’re best practices in most classrooms, but I think sometimes we want to look at, we have a scheduled for the class, like when I walk into anybody’s class, I’m always looking for what is the schedule? Like, what are we doing? Where are we in our day, what’s going on?

Chris
The difference is just whether or not I can handle it as a student, whether it’s just posted on the board, and I’m good with that. And some of our students with disabilities are just going to need it broken down a little bit more for their level to understand it.

Chris
I was working, doing some training on how we can effectively include children in a school district. And the principal was like, you know, that’s a really good point. Because we always, I always tell the teachers, they have to have a schedule for their day, and they have to have it on the board. But in kindergarten, the kids can’t read. So why do we have a written schedule?

Chris
And that year, I walked into her classrooms and every kindergarten class had a picture schedule, which then made it that much more seamless to include our students. But it also benefited all the other students who really benefited from being able to understand that routine, especially at the beginning of the year, when it hasn’t become a routine yet.

Sara
Exactly. You’re still building that. Yeah. It’s so interesting how so often, we think about things that are done in education without taking a step back to think about like, wait a minute, what’s the purpose of this, I always think about things like, like a cursive alphabet.

Sara
I mean, I know cursive is kind of getting a comeback now where teachers are learning more, but I just used to think of like, all the print that was in cursive, or, you know, all these things. I’m like, students can’t read cursive.

Sara
We got to think about who’s actually consuming the content now. So yeah, just really thinking about is, you know, what we have set up in our classroom benefiting all of our students, especially our students with disabilities?

Sara
Any other suggestions you have for teachers, especially when it comes for how they can set up their physical classroom to support positive behavior, you know, for students that have, you know, either autism or other special disabilities, what can teachers do to create that environment to support their students?

Chris
I think one of the things I’ve learned so much from the teachers I’ve had the opportunity to work with, and especially because when I was consulting, I had long term relationships with them, where I would see them year after year.

Chris
And I had this one amazing teacher that had some students with really severe disabilities who were functionally nonverbal, they weren’t really able to communicate effectively using words. And she had taken an interactive book that had moving pieces that matched the pictures in the book, the student would choose one, and he take it to his gen ed class during a time in the day when it was kind of more relaxed.

Chris
So it was kind of a centers time, but there were kids that could be pulled from different centers. And they would choose a peer, they had a small group of peers that worked with the student, and the students like the second or third graders would read the book, and the student with autism would match the pictures.

Chris
And it was just a really nice interaction to watch with them. Because it was both at they were so proud that they were able to read the book to a student who couldn’t do that. And our student from Special Ed had something he could do that was contributing to that interaction as well.

Chris
And I think if we just really look for it, you know, sometimes it’s just parsing out, those moments were worth much more to me than sitting through like three group activities a day, because they were really meaningful. And they were actually building relationship between the peers in one class and the peers in the other class.

Chris
And I think that kind of thing is one of the things we always want to look at. The more that we can find a functional and meaningful way for students to work together, the better the behavior will be. You know, when I think about how can we work successfully with students who have a history of challenging behavior, I think we want to think about, you know, classroom rules and making them explicit.

Chris
Again, every classroom has their rules. It’s just a matter of how they’re presented. You can also tie those two really simple reinforcement systems. You know, one of the things I do with a schedule for routine is you’re going to do this, this this and then you get to do what you want to do. And really, we’re all kind of the when do I get to do what I want to do kind of people. It’s not just the kids. It’s just, it’s more explicit for them. They don’t hide it as well as we do.

Chris
And so I think looking at, you know how I can make it, this is hard for them. Other kids are like, oh, yeah, we’re gonna group this is gonna be so much fun. And a lot of our kids are like, this is the hardest thing I do all day. And so I think we have to then think about how we’re going to kind of make a payoff for that for them to a degree of you know, if you can get through this, then you can do something that you want to do.

Chris
I used to have a girl that would go out to recess, and we have a schedule that she would follow. And it was a script, she would say to her friends, and it was she’d pick a friend, she’d pick an activity, and she’d have to ask, Will you come swing with me? But we always made it so that she had to do it three times five minutes apiece. And when those 15 minutes were over, then she could go pick dandelions because she needed that downtime.

Chris
She didn’t need that recess time to be all booked up with us trying to make her social. And so I think that sometimes we see those behaviors, because we’re pushing too much for what we want to see and maybe not always moving at the speed we want them to move.

Chris
Another thing to do is to look at giving students jobs, whether we’re thinking about young kids having a helper job, or older students who just have a job to fill the time. Something I use with a lot of students with challenging behavior, regardless of their disability or non disability, is the idea that if you give them something to do to keep them engaged, maybe in that transition, where things are kind of down time for a little bit, that’s a really good time to give that, Hey, pass out these papers for me.

Chris
Because if you can keep them engaged in meaningful activity, you don’t have to get that engagement back when they lost it. So I think that having them have something to do that keeps them on whether it’s their time to turn lights on or off for resetting something that was used or cleaning up in an area or passing out the papers, or, you know, even just something that you just kind of made up for them to do.

Chris
A, it brings them up to a level of feeling like they’re responsible. And often they’re not the kids that people make responsible for things. So that can be a big deal. But also, it just keeps them from getting off task and you having to bring them back to task. And so I found that to be probably one of the most successful ways that I get to work with them.

Sara
I love all these ideas. I just I’m thinking back, I’m like, Oh man, I wish I would have had someone like you supporting me when I was still in the classroom, you know, helping students in special education, because I think you know, some of these things that you’ve talked about, bring it back to the like, we don’t have to address every need in every lesson.

Sara
And we really just need to think about what is the function or the goal, but then also too a lot of times, it’s these small things that can have the biggest impact. You know, I think oftentimes teachers can feel really overwhelmed having students with special needs in their classroom, because it’s unfamiliar for them. It’s this new territory, it’s like, okay, how am I going to, you know, help that student be successful? How am I going to modify their schedule, and still keep the schedule of my day?

Sara
You know, I think for teachers, just taking it day by day, and looking for those natural opportunities to support the student with, you know, whatever specific goal they’re working on. But so many of these ideas, I’m just like, I can envision how they would really help students with autism and other disabilities be successful in the classroom and really help teachers too feel like they’re helping students.

Sara
So thank you so much for being willing to come on today and share just your expertise with my audience. I’m super excited to share this conversation with them.

Sara
Before we end this show, can you just tell my audience where they can find you and how they can connect with you on the internet in case they have other questions or want to continue learning about how they can better support their students with special needs in their classroom?

Chris
Absolutely. You can find pretty much everything at autismclassroomresources.com. That’s my hub of the world. And then you can also find me on Instagram is probably the easiest way to message me where I see it. Facebook is weird these days.

Chris
And that’s at @autismclassroomresources. And if you’re looking for classroom rules, there’s actually a free classroom rules in our free resource library. So I’ll make sure that Sara has the link for that to share with you guys as well.

Sara
Absolutely. We’ll link to both your website and your Instagram and all those things in the show notes. So definitely check out the show notes and you have a podcast that comes out weekly as well, correct?

Chris
Yes, yes. It’s also called the Autism Classroom Resource Podcast.

Sara
So we’ll link to all of those in the show notes. If you guys have more questions or want to learn more just about how you can best support your students with autism or other disabilities in your classroom, definitely go give Chris’ podcast to listen to. And again, Chris, thank you so much for being on today. This was just a really great conversation to have.

Chris
Thank you. Thank you for having me.